by Sarah Title
Walker guessed that was his fault now, too.
Red looked down at the check. “This is real generous of you, son, but I got no way to get anywhere.”
Walker didn’t hesitate. He grabbed the key ring out of his pocket, pulled the keys for his truck off, and tossed them at Red’s feet.
The older man started to say something, but Walker just turned on his heel and went upstairs. He sat down on his bed, his spine straight. He listened until he heard the truck pull away, then dropped his head into his hands.
When Lindsey got home from work, she noticed Walker’s truck was gone. She called out as she went inside. When no one answered, she figured Red was gone, too. Maybe they were off having a fun male bonding trip.
Or maybe Walker was burying the body.
Not funny, she thought. Walker hasn’t had a murderous gleam in his eye since the first night Red showed up. But Red did need to get a move on, his wonderful art lessons notwithstanding.
She’d done some research on how ex-cons can enter the workforce. It wasn’t going to be easy. Red would need someone willing to give him a chance, and it probably wasn’t going to be his dream job, at least not at first. But if he could get his foot in the door and prove himself, Lindsey was sure he could get back on his feet.
That’s why she’d spoken to Ned Grubb. Red had been so great with the seniors, encouraging and instructing, and all without any preparation. He was a natural teacher, and if he could channel his talents for good, he could make a real difference in the world.
Ned was willing to hire him to help Glen in the kitchen on a trial basis. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was a start. Red could keep teaching classes, and eventually, he would build up enough work experience that he would have an easier time finding a job. Preferably, a better job in a new city.
Not that she didn’t like Red. It was just that . . . well, she didn’t like him. She hated to admit it, especially since she seemed to be spending so much time telling Walker to keep an open heart. But Red was Walker’s father; Walker was never going to escape that connection, so he might as well make the best of it. Lindsey couldn’t shake the creepy feeling she got from him, though. She couldn’t explain it. He was perfectly nice to her—more than nice, he was generous and helpful and told her that she was good for his son. She had no evidence that he was anything but reformed.
She chalked the creepy feeling up to her own prejudice, a prejudice she didn’t know she had. He’d been a criminal. But he paid his debt, and she wouldn’t let his past dictate how she felt about him.
She tried. She really tried.
She tried for Walker’s sake. But if she was really honest with herself, she would rather Red was gone. And since the main obstacle to his leaving was his lack of gainful employment, Lindsey was pretty pleased with herself for managing to find a solution to the problem that would suit both Red and Walker.
She would miss sharing her space with Walker. Not that it was official—all of his clothes were still in his apartment, and he basically just slept in her bed. (Well, slept and did other stuff—hooray for other stuff.) She liked waking up with him. She realized she was getting dangerously close to having a relationship, but she didn’t mind. It didn’t count if she didn’t have to give up any closet space for him.
Poor Walker. Kicked out of his own place and forced to live apart from his clean boxers. She would make it up to him. She thought about the lingerie set, and how disappointed he’d been that he hadn’t gotten to see it up close. Maybe she’d send Red out to the movies so Walker could get a real good look at it. Maybe she’d spring for a double feature.
As she walked through the kitchen, she noticed that the light was on in the garage. Maybe they could get a do-over on the last time she tried to seduce Walker.
But if Walker was in the studio, where was Walker’s truck? He was pretty adamant about not letting Red drive it since his driver’s license had expired while he was in prison. And where was the dog?
Then, as if she’d conjured him, the garage door opened and Booger came galumphing out, followed by Walker. He was backlit by the overhead lights, and it made him look angelic until the door closed behind him and he was just regular old Walker again.
Good thing she liked regular old Walker.
She met him on the steps to the back porch, her curiosity trumping her desire to seduce, or at least re-prioritizing her desire to seduce. She still had plans for that lingerie.
“Hey,” she called. He looked up at her and gave her a tight smile.
At least it was a smile.
“Get some work done?”
He nodded.
Okay then.
She leaned down to snuffle Booger, who was bouncing madly at her feet. At least the dog was glad to see her.
“Where’s Red?” she asked, squinting up at Walker.
“Gone,” he said, and shoved past her. Snuffling as she was, she lost her balance and landed attractively on her butt, legs rising in a slow-motion, failed attempt at balance. “Sorry,” Walker muttered, and grabbed a hand to right her. “You okay?” he asked.
She raised her eyebrow at him. “If I wasn’t, would you start acting like a human being?”
He ran his hand through his hair. Lindsey recognized that as Walker’s I’m-frustrated-but-not-at-you gesture. She’d become very familiar with that gesture this week. As soon as it was near enough, she put her hand on his forearm. That was her You-can-tell-me-about-it gesture.
Walker didn’t take the bait, though, and turned away from her toward his back door.
“Hey,” she said. “Is Red okay?”
“Yup,” Walker said. She followed him inside.
“Did you let him borrow the truck?”
Walker didn’t respond. Something was definitely wrong, and Walker had put up those old walls again. She hated those damn walls.
“Walker!”
He whirled around to face her so quickly that she had to take a step back. “He’s gone, okay? I gave him money, I gave him my truck, and he’s gone.”
“What?”
Walker didn’t repeat himself. That was fine. Lindsey had heard the words, she just couldn’t make sense of them. “What do you mean, you gave him the truck?”
“I mean he needed a way to get out of town, so I gave it to him.”
“Why did he need a way to get out? Did something happen?”
Walker ran that frustrated hand through his hair again. “Not yet.”
“Not yet? What does that mean?”
“It doesn’t mean anything, okay? He’s gone, that’s all you need to worry about.”
Lindsey tried to put out her listening hand, but Walker backed away.
“Stop it, Lindsey. Just drop it.”
“Drop it? But—”
“Dammit, Lindsey! It’s none of your damn business. Just leave it alone! In fact, just leave me alone.”
“What?” she asked softly. She was beginning to sound like a real idiot.
“You heard me. Stay out of my business. Stay out of my life. None of this would have happened if you had just kept your mouth shut.”
She recoiled, but Walker wasn’t done. “I should’ve just kicked Red out the second I saw him, but you had to stick your nose in it and tell me what was best for me. Well, you were wrong. He’s not my father, not in any way that matters. He’s not reformed. He’s not secretly a good person.”
“What did he do?”
“He didn’t do anything, not yet. But he could have. He would have, and you know why he would have? Because you let him. You let him stay, and you showed him kindness. But Red doesn’t see it as kindness, he sees it as weakness.”
“And so you saved me from the big bad man, is that it?”
“God, Lindsey, you are so naïve, you know that? You’ve got your head up in some goddamn rainbow clouds. Wake up, Lindsey. My father is an asshole. No amount of magical thinking is going to change that.”
Lindsey stared at the man she thought she knew. She thought his gruff
exterior hid a soft, gooey inside. And maybe it did, but if it did, she still hadn’t hit it. “I guess you’re right. You’re a lot more like him than I thought.”
She waited a second to see if he wanted the last word, to see if he would argue with her, prove her wrong about him. She was wrong about Red, fine, but she didn’t have to be wrong about Walker.
But when she turned to go, he let her.
Booger sat on the back porch, looking at two identical closed doors. He looked back and forth, left and right, waiting for someone to come out and tell him which one was his. But nobody did, so after a while, he went back to his old spot under the porch and fell asleep.
Chapter 24
Walker tried to convince himself that it was nice getting to sleep in his own bed again. It probably would have been nicer if he’d actually gotten to sleep. It had been a long time since his insomnia had hit. Months.
He didn’t miss it.
It didn’t help that he could trace his last bout with insomnia to right before he started sleeping with Lindsey, and that she was just next door, and that he really should talk to her anyway because he definitely owed her an apology.
Instead, he spent a productive night staring dumbly at the ceiling. The only thing that broke up the monotony was the occasional howl from Booger.
At least yesterday was over. He’d given Red an hour’s head start, then called Ned Grubb over at Shady Grove. Walker had never been a great talker, but he thought he’d done a pretty good job convincing the owner that there was a possibility that the personal information of some of the residents had been compromised, without telling him how he knew. Well, he thought he’d been convincing until Will Brakefield showed up at his front door.
Since Red hadn’t actually done anything—yet—there were no charges to press. And Walker didn’t have proof that Red had actually taken anyone’s data, and it was entirely possible that he wouldn’t, since identity theft was a different game from art forgery. But Walker had seen that old chip on Red’s shoulder when he left, and Walker knew that when Red thought he deserved something, he took it. There was no reason to think he might not at least try.
Walker half hoped he would try. With extra safeguards in place, Red would surely get caught, and then he’d be out of Walker’s hair for another ten years. Or more.
But maybe Lindsey was right. Maybe Red had changed. Maybe he was only thinking of defrauding senior citizens out of their retirement savings, but wasn’t actually going to go through with it.
That was some Lindsey-level magical thinking, there. The most Walker could hope for was that Red wouldn’t try to steal anything, at least not for a while. By then passwords would be changed and alerts would be posted, and Red would realize the jig was up and that would be that. He could hope that Red would be satisfied taking the lion’s share of Walker’s savings and his only mode of transportation, and that would be it, at least for a while.
Now all Walker had to do was repair the damage Red had done.
Who was he kidding? It was he who’d done all the damage. Red might have been the wheel that set it in motion, but Red didn’t put a gun to Walker’s head and tell him to act like a total dick to Lindsey. The things Walker said to her—totally uncalled for. So what if she saw the good in people? So what if that good wasn’t there? How had that hurt anyone?
Now that it was morning, what he really needed to do was go to Shady Grove and talk to Lindsey in person. But, of course, he had no way of getting there. He’d just have to wait until she got home. The groveling he was building up to was not something that could be accomplished on the phone.
So he locked himself in the garage, and he worked.
Lindsey was an idiot.
Ned said she was being too hard on herself, but Lindsey thought she wasn’t being hard enough. She’d almost hired a known fraudster to work with a vulnerable population. She knew that senior citizens were particularly at risk for identity theft. She knew that, but she’d planned to hire Red anyway because she wanted him to be a good person.
Walker was right. She was naïve. She was a fool. The fact that Walker had stopped her from being an accessory to a crime didn’t help.
“You got a burr under your tail?” Myron was standing at the door to her office.
“What?”
“It’s an expression. You look pissed off.”
She sighed and waved him in.
“I am. At myself, mostly.”
“Because you let Red Smith dupe you?”
“Gosh, Myron, don’t try to spare my feelings.”
“Eh, you caught it in time.”
“I didn’t catch anything,” she reminded him.
“That’s right. Walker did. He’s not anything like his father, you know.”
Lindsey looked up, surprised. “I know that.”
“He’s a good boy. He just needs to learn to trust himself.”
Great, now they were going to have a heart-to-heart about Walker.
What were the chances that Myron wouldn’t notice her crying?
“Hey, now, none of that.”
Pretty slim, clearly.
“I’m okay,” she said as Myron shuffled around her desk. He pulled a tissue out of the box and handed it to her.
“What did that boy do?”
Lindsey was surprised by the anger in Myron’s voice. She reminded herself that she needed to keep it professional.
“Nothing, really. He’s just . . . he’s very upset about what happened, and so am I. I’ll be fine. Really. I promise.”
But she wasn’t fine. She cried the whole way home, and she cried when she took herself to bed early. She was still sniffling when she heard Walker knock softly on her door, but she wasn’t ready to talk to him yet, not like this.
She dozed for a bit, and when she woke up, she was sensible.
There was no reason to cry. She had nothing to cry over. She’d been dumped before. She’d ended much longer relationships than the one she had with Walker. She didn’t even want to be in a relationship. She wanted to do things differently. She used to have boyfriends. She didn’t want one now.
Totally different.
Dammit, her eyes were still leaking.
It was too confusing. She didn’t want Walker, especially if he didn’t want her. She should be grateful to him. He’d prevented her from slipping into her old pattern of pairing up with someone, and not having time for herself. He had actually done her a favor.
The wind slammed rain against her window. At least if she was sad and miserable, this would be the perfect weather for her.
But she was fine.
She hadn’t even bothered changing out of her scrubs before getting into bed, and now she was up at 2 AM listening to the rain, but that was just because she was fine.
She was going to need another minute or two before she could admit that Walker had broken her heart.
Her phone beeped, and she dug it out from under her pillow. Her ridiculous, traitorous heart thought for a minute that it might be Walker, calling to apologize and admit he was an idiot. She was ready to talk to him, now that she was sensible.
But it was the number for Shady Grove. She sat up, immediately alert. A phone call from a nursing home at 2 AM could not be good news.
“Lindsey? I’m so sorry to wake you.” Hope sounded frantic and breathless. “Mr. Harris is missing. He’s not over there, is he?”
“What?” Lindsey jumped out of bed and grabbed her socks and sneakers.
“I know he’s friends with Walker. He was up reading a few hours ago, but when I did my last round, his bed was empty. We looked everywhere. He’s not here.”
“Did you check the sun room?”
“Yes, and the kitchen and all of the other residents’ rooms. Lindsey, he’s not here.”
“He can’t have left. Wouldn’t the alarm have gone off?” She threw a fleece on over her T-shirt, then grabbed her raincoat out of the closet. Flashlight. She had a flashlight somewhere. Kitchen drawer.
&nbs
p; “It must have shorted out when we lost power earlier . . .”
“Don’t we have a backup? Okay, no, obviously not. Listen. I’m on my way in. Call the police, tell them everything you remember. When was the last time you saw him? What was he wearing? They’re going to want to know all of that.”
“Lindsey, I’m so sorry. I checked on him. I swear he was in his room—”
“Hope, listen to me. Hope. Stop. Listen. Deep breath. Call the police. Answer their questions. Stay there and wait for them, okay? I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“Oh, god, Lindsey, what if—”
“Hope, no. I’ll see you soon, and we’ll find him.”
She hung up on Hope, and slammed the door behind her.
Walker was an idiot.
But breaking up with Lindsey was the smart thing to do. It never would have worked out. She was Mother Teresa, he was a con man’s son. Even if he did give them a chance, sooner or later she would realize they were not meant to be together, and she’d go. And he wouldn’t be able to blame her. But he could cut a little of that pain off at the pass.
He’d made the right decision.
Being right sucked.
He was startled out of his pity party by a knock on the door.
“Walker?”
Lindsey.
He thought about hiding in his room. She’d ignored his knock earlier, so now it was his turn.
Right, because she was so crazy in love with him that she needed to pound on his door in the middle of the night to declare her undying love.
Not that he wanted that.
And why wouldn’t she just pound on the laundry room door?
While he tried to figure out what she was doing there, she continued to pound on the door and shout for him. There was only one way to find out what she wanted. He pulled the door open, and his heart stopped.
Something was wrong.
She was pale and disheveled, her hair spilling out from the hood of her raincoat.
“Is Myron here?”
